Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder presenting a wide spectrum of diseases that affects approximately 50 million people worldwide, which corresponds to 1% of the world's burden of disease, equaling breast cancer in women and lung cancer in men. Epilepsy refers to a clinical phenomenon rather than a single disease entity, since there are many forms and causes of epilepsy.
An essential step in the diagnosis and treatment of a patient with a seizure is to determine the type of seizure that has occurred. The main characteristic that distinguishes the different categories of seizure is whether the seizure activity is partial or generalized.
On the basis of clinical and encephalographic phenomenon, four subdivisions of epilepsy are recognized: grand mal epilepsy (with subgroups: generalized, focal, jacksonian), petit mal epilepsy, psychomotor or temporal lobe epilepsy (with subgroups: psychomotor proper or tonic with adversive or torsion movements or masticatory phenomenon, automatic with amnesia, or sensory with hallucinations or dream states) and autonomic or diencephalic epilepsy (with flushing, pallor, tachycardia, hypertension, perspiration or other visceral symptoms).
Despite many trials to develop anti-epilepsy drugs, epilepsy is still unmet in efficacies. Therefore, there is a need for improved anti-epilepsy medications.